The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (23 page)

One of the twins—the Source—rested his
hand on the other’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Red light covered
his entire body and disappeared into the skin of the Conduit, his
brother. The Conduit stood there without urgency and watched Marius
run. His skin glowed with a shifting radiance that looked like
sunlight reflecting into the surface of a red pond.

The Con held out one of his arms and
opened his palm toward Marius, who had just made it back to the
empty dune buggy and lowered Corva so she could stand
up.

Red light formed around the Conduit’s
hand and pooled over his palm. The energy seemed on the verge of
releasing when a blue spear of light cut through his body and
ripped him off his feet. He spun backward into the darkness behind
the house and disappeared.

Elena lowered her arm and breathed out
heavily. A thin layer of blue light shimmered across her
skin.

“
Lee!” shouted the
remaining twin. His face twisted in rage and he raised his fists
toward Elena. Red light sputtered weakly from his hands and he
screamed in anger. He turned and ran behind the house.

“
Time to go!” shouted
Marius.

He hopped into the driver’s seat of
his buggy and Corva lowered herself down next to him with a
grimace. Marius cranked the wheel and sped out onto the road, back
in the direction of The Dome.

Elena moved faster than Haven was
expecting as she nimbly climbed into the second buggy and sat
behind the wheel. She twisted the key in the ignition and slammed
her foot down on the gas pedal, the back tires squealing as the
buggy tore down the street.

Haven turned back to look at the
burning house. The twins stepped out of the shadows next to the
flames, one of them leaning heavily against the other. They watched
the dune buggies drive away and Haven was certain that they were
smiling.

She turned to face forward just as all
of the street lamps on both sides of the long street dimmed and
went out.

Marius’s buggy on the road ahead
turned into a dim silhouette in the moonlight.

“
Oh no,” said
Elena.

There came the sound of a
chest-compressing
WHUMP
and the first buggy launched sideways into the
air, spinning side over side until it slammed upside-down onto the
grass just off the street.

Elena stomped down on the brake pedal
and the buggy screeched to a halt in the middle of the
road.

“
Get out get out get out!”
she said quickly, scrambling to get over her door.

Haven grabbed onto the roll cage and
pulled herself up, then jumped out of the buggy as another deep,
muted noise blasted the street. The air around her was sucked away,
pulling the breath from her chest. A pressure blast smacked her
body as if she were a swatted fly and she was thrown into the
air.

She had a split-second to see her dune
buggy drop from the sky and disappear behind a house before she
slammed into the grass next to the road. She crawled onto her hands
and knees as she fought to breathe—it felt like her chest was in a
vise and a plastic bag covered her mouth. Hair clung to the sides
of her face and her vision was blurred. Across the dark street, a
silhouetted figure stepped away from a lamp post and walked toward
her. Behind the silhouette, two other figures appeared, shorter
than the first.

Haven felt something lurch
inside her when she looked at the two figures in the background.
The sensation that consumed her body as she trembled on the grass
and struggled to breathe was something much more intense than
anything she had experienced. The sensation was
complete
in every way—symmetrical
gravitation that pulled every thread of her soul in one
direction.

The tall figure stood next to her,
looking down. Haven looked up blearily. She was unable to see a
face in the silhouette, but could tell it was a man. He turned his
head to one side, then the other, as if inspecting her like a lab
specimen. He walked over to Elena, who lay on her back on a small
embankment next to the road, bleeding from deep cuts all over her
body.

The figure knelt down in the grass
next to her.

Elena breathed raggedly and a small
line of blood trickled out from the corner of her mouth. She looked
up into the face of the figure with unblinking eyes, totally
unafraid.

“
Hello, Elena,” said the
figure. The dark corners of his mouth raised in a grin. “And
goodbye.”

29

C
olton waited in the shadows next to one of the houses on the
long street. Shelly stood beside him, the sleeve of her jacket
brushing his arm as she nervously shifted her weight from one foot
to the other.

Reece leaned against the house a few
feet away, hands in his pockets, watching with a small smile on his
face as Bernam and Alistair flipped over the first dune buggy. It
twisted through the air and smashed down into the grass alongside
the road.

Reece whistled appreciatively. “Those
boys sure know how to get things done,” he said.

The second buggy launched into the air
just as the old woman and a young girl jumped to the ground. Both
of them were caught in Alistair’s blast and were sent flying. The
girl hit the grass and rolled to a stop. The old woman landed on
her back with a loud crack of broken bones. Shelly squeezed her
eyes shut and grabbed Colton’s arm.

Bernam’s dark silhouette knelt down
next to the old woman and he said something to her. Blood trickled
from the corner of her mouth.

Alistair appeared between two houses
on the other side of the street and walked over to the first buggy.
Within the overturned vehicle, a stocky man and a woman with white
hair lay next to each other against the top of the roll
cage.

Bernam stood and turned around. His
eyes were not visible in the shadows that covered his face, yet
Colton felt his piercing glare. “Shelly,” he said. “Go back and
collect the twins. Prep the plane for departure.”

She looked at him, then at
Colton.

“
Now,” said
Bernam.

She squeezed Colton’s arm and ran down
the street, away from the wrecked buggies.

“
Colton,” said Bernam. He
raised his arm and beckoned Colton to him.

“
That’s you,” whispered
Reece.

He grabbed Colton’s sleeve and pulled
him toward the street. Colton shrugged him off and walked slowly,
unable to take his eyes from the girl on the grass. The street was
dark and he couldn’t really see what she looked like, but something
about her drew him in—it felt as if his vision had collapsed into a
narrow tunnel between them both. A kaleidoscope blur surrounded
everything but the small area around this girl he had never met
before.

The stocky man in the overturned dune
buggy groaned loudly and tried to stand.

“
Alistair,” said Bernam
quietly.

Alistair knelt down and smiled into
the buggy.

“
Now, now, Marius. You
know better than that.”

Marius’s face twisted in rage and he
spat a string of Russian words that Colton assumed were the darkest
curses imaginable.

Alistair’s smile broadened as he stood
and took a step back from the buggy. He rested his palms on the
edge of the chassis and closed his eyes. The vehicle rattled slowly
at first, and then faster until, from bumper to bumper, it vibrated
like a plucked guitar string. Alistair walked away and the dune
buggy exploded.

Chunks of debris shot in every
direction. The roll cage flipped up into the air. The two people
trapped inside bounced violently against the bars of the cage as it
crashed through the roof of a nearby home. It landed with a loud
crunch and a plume of dust clouded up from the hole in the
roof.

Alistair brushed off his hands. “I’m
done,” he said. “Need to charge.”

Bernam nodded and Alistair walked
away, following after Shelly.

“
Colton,” said Bernam.
“It’s time.”

Colton stood in the middle of the
street. He looked at the girl in the grass, who stared back at him
in anger. The old woman lay before Bernam, broken and
shaking.

“
This doesn’t feel right,”
said Colton.

Bernam tilted his head to
the side as if to say
how dare
you?
, then his shoulders relaxed with a
sigh and he walked over to Colton. He nodded sympathetically and
rested a hand on Colton’s shoulder.

“
This is what we’ve been
talking about ever since we first met,” said Bernam. “This is how
you get to help countless others who are just like you. This woman
holds the key to the future, Colton, and
we need that key
!”

His conviction was moving,
but as Colton looked at the old woman lying helpless on the ground,
he knew he could do nothing to harm her. “I wouldn’t be able to
live with myself,” he said at last. “I mean,
look
at her—”

“
I’ll do it,” interrupted
Reece. He looked at the woman and swallowed hard, as if he was
struggling to convince himself. “Yeah, sure. I’ll do it. Just like
you said, Bernam. Give me the power.”

“
What are you talking
about?” asked Colton. “What power?”

Bernam shook his head. “This is
Colton’s decision.”

“
Why do I have to be the
one?”

“
Because you are the only
one strong enough to contain her energy,” said Bernam. “Even I
would only be able to hold it a few minutes, after which it would
burn me from the inside-out. It
must
be you.”

Bernam’s hand slipped off his shoulder
as Colton walked over and stood above the old woman. She looked up
at him without anger or resentment; it almost seemed as if she was
already forgiving Colton for what he was supposed to do.

“
I won’t do it,” said
Colton, shaking his head.

Bernam sighed. His head dropped and he
nodded deeply. “Very well,” he said.

He moved so quickly that Colton was
staring at empty space when something hit the middle of his
ribcage. He looked down to see Bernam’s right hand on his chest.
His fingers disappeared into five black holes in Colton’s ribcage.
The edges of the holes flowed around Bernam’s fingers like
liquid.

Colton tried to speak but he could
not. He tried to breathe but his throat was clenched
shut.

“
Reece, if you would…”
said Bernam calmly. He beckoned him over and Reece obeyed, a look
of confused horror on his face.

“
Don’t hurt him, man,”
said Reece.

“
It’s a little late for
that.”

Bernam reached out and grabbed Reece’s
shirt. He pulled him close and gripped him firmly by the throat.
Reece struggled to take a breath but his flailing arms bounced
harmlessly off Bernam’s skin. He was lifted into the air, his legs
kicking uselessly against Bernam’s shins.

Colton felt warmth drain from his
limbs. It gathered in his chest and flowed out through the holes
made by Bernam’s fingers. His vision dimmed as if it were light
fueled by a dying generator.

Bernam stared at Colton. His eyes were
solid black, ringed with sparking black fire.

“
Your power is wasted on
you,” he said.

Colton grit his teeth, certain that
they would shatter long before the pain ended. It felt like a
hundred clawed fingers were scraping against the inside of his
body, peeling away his insides and pulling them out through his
chest.

Bernam looked at him with those black
eyes, and Colton was more scared in that moment than he had ever
been in his entire life. There was no reasoning with the person who
had those eyes. They regarded everything with a cold distance,
completely devoid of emotion. No amount of pleading and no logical
argument could be made to save a person trapped in the stare of
eyes so dead.

The last ounce of warmth left Colton’s
body and Bernam threw him aside. He fell to the street and he heard
his skull crack loudly against the asphalt, but there was no pain.
Colton’s entire body was numb.

Paralyzed, he watched Bernam lower
Reece to the ground and release his neck. Reece stood there, mouth
slack, staring into the distance.

Bernam slapped his shoulder and Reece
blinked.

“
How do you
feel?”

Reece looked down at his hands.
“Weird,” he said.

Bernam guided him over to the old
woman, who watched everything with wide eyes. She tried to speak
but little more than a soft gurgle escaped her lips.

The young girl lying in the grass
coughed. “Stop,” she said weakly. Her eyelids fluttered to stay
open as she pulled herself toward the old woman. “Stop.”

Bernam held up his hand and flicked
the air. The girl tumbled across the grass and rolled to a stop on
her stomach twenty feet away. She remained there,
unmoving.

“
I will start,” said
Bernam. “And you will finish.”